Campbell: I was intimidated

The East Londonderry MP was said to have caused “uproar” when he spoke at a 40th anniversary conference for the Northern Ireland civil rights movement.

Backlash

He suffered a vigorous backlash in Londonderry’s Guildhall on Saturday when he spoke of the poverty and intimidation he and his family suffered growing up as Protestants in Londonderry.

He also told the audience how he was refused a job in the city because of his religion and how discrimination by law continues today against Protestants in Northern Ireland.

“It was certainly the most lively part of the day,” said Mr Campbell, who is also Minister for Culture, Arts and Leisure.

“I held up a letter for everyone to see from the Housing Executive in 1978 which told me I had qualified for a job and that I would be put on the reserve register to be called when a position opened.

Discrimination

“But that was at the time that discrimination against Protestants in the Housing Executive was beginning and I told the audience that the job never came – because I was a Protestant.

“Austin Currie (a former SDLP MP] then asked me if I should not have joined the civil rights movement.

“But I responded that 40 years ago there was not the wide range of anti-discrimination legislation and commissions to stop discrimination on grounds of race or religion.

“And yet now we have discrimination against people on grounds of their religion set down in law in Northern Ireland.

“I pointed at the audience and said that their community never suffered discrimination by statutory provision the way Protestants are now discriminated against when trying to join the police. There was uproar in the hall. Even Mark Durkan did not contradict me, but calm was eventually restored.”

PSNI slammed

Mr Campbell said that many suitably qualified Protestants are today refused jobs in the PSNI under the 50:50 rule because they can only be employed if there are equal numbers of suitably qualified Catholics applying to join.

His view now is that equality legislation means nationalists “are more likely to be successful at becoming police officers than unionists are at becoming housing officers”.

Reflecting on the 1960s in Londonderry, Mr Campbell told the News Letter he was raised in York Street in the Waterside in a rented two-up-two-down terrace which only had an outside toilet, a ‘scullery’ for a kitchen and no central heating.

As a typical young unionist lad, he said he attended technical college and then started work in a shop.

Intimidated

“I used to go to the Brandywell quite regularly until I got physically intimidated at several games. Other friends suffered likewise,” he said.

“I can recall that during August 1969, cousins of my mother who lived in Windmill Terrace near the Bogside arrived to stay with us. I, as a teenager, was unsure what was happening.

“I remember my cousins recounting people arriving at their door and informing them in no uncertain terms they would be better off leaving the area

A night time trip to Great James Street to see the Presbyterian church under siege left me even more frustrated as I heard on the radio how nationalists were protesting about how they felt under siege.

“Working class Protestants and Roman Catholics were completely divided in relation to the campaign as it took hold. It began just a few years after the defeat of the 1956-1962 IRA campaign.”

He was typical of working class unionist thinking, he says, in that as the civil rights protests grew so did his resentment and anger.

“That smouldering simmering resentment has never been extinguished,” he said.

“It wasn’t simply that we weren’t first class citizens, it was anger that the nationalist finger of blame was being pointed at us for nationalist deprivation while our disadvantage wasn’t even recognised.”A night time trip to Great James Street to see the Presbyterian church under siege left me even more frustrated as I heard on the radio how nationalists were protesting about how they felt under siege.

“Working class Protestants and Roman Catholics were completely divided in relation to the campaign as it took hold. It began just a few years after the defeat of the 1956-1962 IRA campaign.”

He was typical of working class unionist thinking, he says, in that as the civil rights protests grew so did his resentment and anger.

“That smouldering simmering resentment has never been extinguished,” he said.

“It wasn’t simply that we weren’t first class citizens, it was anger that the nationalist finger of blame was being pointed at us for nationalist deprivation while our disadvantage wasn’t even recognised.”A night time trip to Great James Street to see the Presbyterian church under siege left me even more frustrated as I heard on the radio how nationalists were protesting about how they felt under siege.

“Working class Protestants and Roman Catholics were completely divided in relation to the campaign as it took hold. It began just a few years after the defeat of the 1956-1962 IRA campaign.”

He was typical of working class unionist thinking, he says, in that as the civil rights protests grew so did his resentment and anger.

“That smouldering simmering resentment has never been extinguished,” he said.

“It wasn’t simply that we weren’t first class citizens, it was anger that the nationalist finger of blame was being pointed at us for nationalist deprivation while our disadvantage wasn’t even recognised.”

Those who “falsely accused” his community of depriving Catholics of their rights prompted his entry into politics.

After October 1968, he said that some in the nationalist/republican community intimidated, attacked and murdered unionists, which along with the triumphalist activities of many political representatives resulted in virtually the complete elimination of unionists from parts of Londonderry.

The civil rights movement achieved its objectives within a few months but intimidation, attacks and murder of unionists, along with the triumphalist activities of politicians, still led to the mass movement of thousands of Protestants to make the “river crossing”, he said.

Two traditions in divided city
Editorial Newsletter: 06 October 2008

THE Civil Rights movement in Northern Ireland has always been portrayed as an Irish nationalist/republican struggle against unionist structures and institutions and scant regard is given to the situation of Protestants living in places like Londonderry when the street agitation began 40 years ago.

East Londonderry DUP MP Gregory Campbell, who was growing up in the Maiden City at the time, provides a graphic account in today’s News Letter of what life was like for the minority Protestant community there with a catalogue of intimidation and attacks by militant republicans.

Mr Campbell recalls that as a working class unionist, just as much disenfranchised in employment prospects as his nationalist city-dwellers, nothing about the Civil Rights’ movement attracted him; rather as the protests grew so did his resentment and anger.

And with it a mass exodus of Protestants and unionists from the mainly nationalist West Bank of the River Foyle.

As Mr Campbell points out, there were undoubtedly other factors in the exodus, but shooting, bombing and intimidation were the primary reasons.